Cold
by sarbey
Summary: Cameron doesn't show up for work, House is worried. oneshot Hameron


Muse demanded attention and forced me to write it.

Disclaimer: Down't own, House, come to think of it, down't even own a house, how sad is that:-)

Now enjoy!

* * *

She vanished on a Friday. 

Maybe that was the reason nobody noticed it at first, after all who liked to work at the end of the week, especially in a busy place like the ER at Princeton General.

When she didn't show up for work on time, the nurse in charge simply called the next doctor and briefly wrote it down.

* * *

_Opening her eyes with difficulty, pain searing through her limbs, left leg almost numb._

_Blood sticking in her eyes, making it difficult to see, rolling over she moaned and coughed blood._

_Cold, she was cold. _

_Snow._

_She was outside, somewhere, trying to recall how she got here, but failing to remember. Her blood seeped through the snow, melting it on the spot._

_She tried to get up, hands fisting in the snow, she pushed herself into a kneeing position, clutching her right side where the pain seemed to be emerging from._

_Looking around she realised something. _

_Nothing, nobody, she was alone._

_Alone._

* * *

Taptaptaptaptap 

"Oh, for God's sake, would you stop that already!" Wilson hissed angrily, causing his unwanted companion to snap the pencil he was torturing his friend's ears with to snap with an audible plop.

"Damn, Jimmy, you ruined all the fun now."

Wilson rolled his eyes.

"Stop whining House, go bug Cuddy or your fellows or whoever doesn't get away fast enough. Maybe you can finally decide which one of the poor souls will have the pleasure of working with you in the future."

"Where would be the fun in that?"

Dr Gregory House, world-renowned diagnostician and notoriously sarcastic bastard started rummaging through his best friend's desk again.

"Where do you keep your stuff anyway?"

Wilson smirked.

"Away from you."

* * *

_One foot in front of the other. _

_She could see something glistening in the snow, in was red, sharp, and a piece of metal._

_She instantly recognized the remains of her Volvo._

_Screwing her eyes shut she clutched her head, mental images assaulting her mind._

_A branch on the road, trying to avoid it, loosing control over her car. _

_Pain when her head connected with the steering wheel, the car turning over, the feeling of being tossed like a ball._

_White, the last memory before she lost consciousness, the first snow of the year gently covering the gruesome scenery with a cold and silencing layer._

* * *

Impatiently strolling the hallways of PPTH, Gregory House looked for a distraction for his ever busily wandering mind. Almost a week without an even remotely interesting case in sight he was nearing the point where he would voluntarily admit himself to the psych ward. 

He had bugged Wilson for almost an hour, nearly driving him insane, until the normally calm oncologist had thrown him out.

Then Cuddy had tracked him down and hauled his ass down to the clinic where he had been forced to endure two hours of sore throats and bratty little children with overprotective mothers at their sides.

Even the most stupid idiot could see that winter was coming around. He already dreaded the approaching holidays. Nothing worse than happily cheering people trying to spread their decease all over the world.

Meanwhile he had found himself in the ER, annoyingly so, the place where SHE worked now.

Another of those things he didn't dwell on, nothing like thinking about the immunologist that had occupied his thoughts since the day he'd hired her, to ruin his mood.

He fixed the nurse behind the counter with a stern glare and asked gruffly.

"Where can I find Dr Cameron?"

The woman looked up, a frightened look crossing her face before she composed herself.

"I'm sorry Dr House, she didn't come in today. She's probably just taking the day off."

She smiled reassuringly.

He frowned. That wasn't very Cameron-ish. Taking the day off without calling in to apologize first.

"Did you call her? Did she call?" he was annoyed now, where the hell did they hire hospital staff these days.

"Did anybody bother trying to reach her?"

He had practically shouted the last few words causing the young woman to visibly shrink in her place. His grip on the cane tightened, trying to cool down the anger that boiled inside him.

She attempted to say something else but he cut her off by swirling around and leaving as fast as he could with his bum leg, leaving a baffled and confused nurse in his wake.

* * *

_She dragged herself forward, along the street, hoping against hope that somebody would find his way to this godforsaken area._

_Mentally she cursed herself. She had to choose this day to take a road that basically nobody ever took, normally, just because she liked it._

_He headache had dulled into a faint throbbing and she could barely feel her limbs anymore. If she didn't get out of the cold she probably wouldn't survive the night._

_She had lost every sense of time, the only indication now the stand of the sun, telling her that night approached fast._

_Maybe she should just succumb to the exhaustion, freezing wasn't that bad, it would certainly ease the pain, she could just lay down and close her eyes._

_It would be so easy._

_Weak._

_An annoyingly taunting voice, sounding suspiciously like her former boss, whispered in her head._

_It would be weak._

_The easy way out._

You don't do the easy way, Cameron. If you did, you wouldn't have worked for House that long, you wouldn't have married a dying man.

_It was the one thing House had never been able to understand, maybe he didn't want to._

_It took an enormous amount of strengths to see somebody you love die, to stay; even if the only thing you want to do is run and hide._

_Strength._

* * *

He was worried now, a state he didn't find himself in very often. After unsuccessfully trying to reach her at home several times, he'd searched for Chase and Foreman, but neither man had heard from Cameron. She wasn't busy in the clinic or immunology, she didn't currently try to turn his team against him and she definitely hadn't been spotted near his department. 

Suppressing the disappointment he felt at the fact that she wasn't around him all day anymore, he had called 911.

Now he was waiting.

Obviously this season was a busy one for their local police station, though maybe it was the fact that they didn't really like him, but they had put him in the waiting line.

Twenty minutes badly played Mozart and he was ready to commit homicide on the next unsuspecting victim that came round the corner.

Maybe then they would bother to answer his call.

* * *

_Exhaustion finally got the better of her and she sunk down into the snow. Fighting to stay conscious she thought of the people she would leave behind. _

_Her friends, family, colleagues, House…_

_House._

_Why was it that everything seemed to revert back to him? She had tried, several times, to get over him. She'd failed every time. _

_The crush she had first harboured, had, over the years, developed into something more._

_Love._

_So simple, so pure, and yet so complicated._

_At least where Gregory House was concerned._

_Would he mourn her, would her dead affect him in any way? Would he even notice?_

_She would have laughed harshly at the thought if she'd still had the strength._

_Instead she just coughed, a sharp intake of breath and finally she lost the fight and darkness embraced her._

* * *

"For the hundredth time, Officer, this is not like Dr Cameron. She would have at least called to call in sick if that was the case." 

Lisa Cuddy scowled angrily at the police officer in front of her. It had taken one frantic phone call from James Wilson about House behaving even more strangely than normally, to get her to come down, only to find a crowd of hospital staff curiously watching House chew out two uniformed men.

After talking to them for about five minutes she was now rather annoyed herself.

"Look, Dr Cuddy, we already have our people searching the area. If she's out there, we'll find her."

She huffed impatiently, they better had, loosing the young doctor would have a devastating effect on everybody who was associated with her. She looked over to where House was sitting and took in his slumped position and almost defeated look on his face.

She didn't want to know what loosing her would do to House.

* * *

_Voices whispered to her, calling her name. She felt hands on her body, checking for injuries._

_They moved her, wrapped her up like a drop, harsh lighting blinding her. The pain returned together with the warmth, she was finally warming up again, the process sending new spikes of pain through her already weary body._

_Somebody spoke to her, she couldn't answer._

_Couldn't understand._

_She slipped into unconsciousness again just to be woken several minutes later._

_They moved her, was that a gurney, and again she could hear voices, frantically screaming orders._

_The last thing she saw, was a flash of steely blue eyes on her face, then nothing._

_ Oblivion._

* * *

He paced the halls anxiously, for the first time wishing he worked in the ER to, just to be able to take care of her now. 

Wilson's worried eyes followed his every step.

"You won't be able to help her by pacing a hole in the floor, you know."

House snorted and plopped down next to his friend.

Tiredly he rubbed a hand over his face.

"What the hell am I supposed to do now?" he asked, almost angrily.

Wilson regarded him, confused.

"What do you mean?"

"She could have died today!" he hissed, his voice anguished, "tell me, Jimmy, what should I do now?"  
He almost groaned and the knowing look, that suddenly appeared on the oncologist's face.

"It's just a suggestion, Greg" he rarely called him that "but maybe it's time to stop running."

* * *

She woke slowly, needing to fight through the thick fog that had settled upon her mind. She was warm, surprisingly comfortable. 

'Painkillers numbing the pain', she mused.

A throat being cleared to her right, alerted her to the presence of the room's other occupant.

House.

He shuffled closer, hesitantly reaching out to brush a strand of hair from her face.

He gently tucked it behind her ear.

Gently?

Where the hell was the real House and who was this?

He put his cane aside a sat beside her on the bed.

"Cameron."

His voice was strained, her brushed her cheek and she turned her face into his palm.

Then she caught the look in his eyes.

Fear.

She had seen Gregory House in many moods, more than she could count, more than she dared to count, but this was one feeling she had certainly never associated with him. She had never seen him truly afraid of something, and yet…

Maybe he needed reassuring just as much as she did, she turned her head again and pressed a gentle kiss into the palm that still lingered on her cheek.

The flash of emotions in his eyes, so many, every one surely reflected in her own green orbs, caught her off guard.

He narrowed his eyes, a fierce almost possessive look shining through, turning them a considerably darker shade of blue.

The last thing she felt were his lips on her forehead and she briefly mused over the fact how they'd just gone through a life-altering change without either of them uttering a single word.

Exhaustion claimed her again and her eyes began to close.

She didn't worry, though.

He would be there when she woke up again.


End file.
